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Kevin’s family

2015 Shanghai

Kevin, 22 years old, is a senior student of Sociology at a university in Shanghai. His family resides in a Shanghai suburb and he visits home once a month. Kevin has lived away from home since he was a senior at school. Kevin’s father is a civil servant and his mother is a primary school teacher. His father is interested in IT and proficient in its’ use while Kevin’s mother relies on him to learn new digital media technologies.

Kevin uses WeChat as his most frequent form of communication with his parents and friends. Having built up a family WeChat chat group, the family has gradually developed the habit of sharing information online via WeChat almost every day. Sometimes they use WeChat or Moments, a social function of WeChat, to check in with each other.

(Kevin’s mother congratulates Kevin on his academic achievement in their family chat group with a simple thumbs-up GIF.)